Your school dinners

[FridgeJenga]

but really, this thread is about school cake!

The only thing I really liked from my school dinners was school cake, but no pink custard please.
Well, maybe their fish cakes but these were made with a batter coating, rather than the usual breadcrumbs.

Did you enjoy school dinners as a kid?

Chocolate concrete. Possibly not officially named that. Sometimes it was squidgy, sometimes it was rock hard amd prone to flying across the room when you stuck a spoon into it. Always delicious. Custard best avoided.

Custard with the skin on top 😋🤤

Cheese slop- a sort of cheese and onion pie.
Green trifle- it was yesterdays spotted dick leftover, with green jelly , pink blancmange , white creamy stuff and hundreds and thousands, served with an ice cream roll on warm plates!

The rest was horrible. There were only a set amount of kids allowed to bring packed lunches presumably to make the budget work, but my mum doesn't take no for an answer and after all 3 of us refused to eat at school, she bullied the head into allowing us on the list.

This was all primary school, at secondary school I lived off sweets in the tuck shop, chips, jam donuts and Eccles cakes. All good tasty stuff 🤣

Cheese and potato pie.

Mashed potato mixed with grated cheese, then more cheese on top and put under the grill. Served with tinned plum tomatoes.

Cheese and potato pie was a staple in our uni house share!
Our 6th form was the best, the dinner ladies hand made fresh scones every morning and there would be long queues to get them while they were still warm.

I used the like cement pie (pudding) have never ever found a recipe for it though.

I’m intrigued by school dinners, schools where I live never had them when I was a kid. My DCs still doesn’t…

Manchester tart was my favourite pudding.
I think it was a sweet pastry base with a layer of jam, a thicker layer of set custard and sprinkled with desiccated coconut on the top.
Unless anyone knows any differently?

Yes, I actually did like my primary school dinners actually. I can't remember much about them other than the little ice cream scoops of various mash and the chocolate custard. But I remember liking them.

Secondary school was pretty good too, but I mainly had packed lunch. I was really lucky with my school canteen (same for primary and secondary as my primary was a prep school attached to a grammar). But you could buy anything at secondary while primary school was a set meal

Favourite school hot meal - cheese and onion pie with baked beans.

puddings - 1: chocolate sponge (not concrete) with mint custard.
2: warm iced buns with a lemon sauce to pour on top.

Pastry spread with jam, then sliced banana topped with a set custard on top. It was delicious!

Yes we had that one too - yum!

Don't think I had a favorite. We didn't have cheese and potato pie because that would probably have been it, if we did..

We had a dessert we called "concrete" too @murasaki used to come with either green or pink custard.

There was another thing we named "Kitekat pie". Definitely not it's official name, it was just because the filling looked like cat food.

Ours were a horror show. I have no nostalgia at all. In fact the only thing I can remember is the tapioca pudding, which resembled frogspawn with a tiny blob of jam in the middle, the only edible bit.

Too many actuallys....actually. Makes me sound weirdly defensive about school dinners 😂

We had no choice of food and had to stay in the dining hall until we'd eaten everything on our plates.

I can still remember the awful mince soup and gagging on cold semolina while a battle axe of a teacher stood over me.

I liked the stodgy puddings.

I used to enjoy school dinners (my mother was a terrible cook!)

I didn't mind school dinners, the only things I didn't like was pilchards, didn't like fish at all back then and spam fritters that oozed yellowy oil onto your plate. Horrible!

Loved the roast dinners and Manchester tart. 😋

Oh god yes, semi circular spam fritters in horrid batter.

And half a chopped (also i can only assume stewed) beetroot, that was cold and bled red all over the plate. Not nice.

Jam sponge cake topped with desiccated coconut was amazing with thick custard. I didn't mind school dinners but I LOVED the puddings!

Isle of Wight pudding - like jam roly-poly, but filled with currants and brown sugar, served with a clear lemon sauce mad with real lemons. Fabulous!

Think I was the only one who liked tapioca pudding. I got given loads of it by my disgusted mates who would watch me shovel down frogspawn with glee.

Butterscotch tart. Nothing else comes even close

Only used the like the bacon roll - think a crispy bit of bacon in a burger bun
and a cheese baguette which was in actual fact a brioche bun with melted crispy cheese in it